


Billy Boy

by DoctorBilly



Series: Life goes on… [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Billyverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-21 13:22:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2469743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorBilly/pseuds/DoctorBilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bit of Billy's back-story. This gives us a brief look at Billy's unhappy school days. </p><p>Tags: anxiety; loneliness; self-harm; corporal punishment; bullying</p><p> </p><p>Set a long time before <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1850431/chapters/3980371">You Are My Only</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Eleven

" _Happy birthday, dear Billy Boy, happy birthday to you._ "

Billy laughs, screws his eyes up tight and makes a wish. He blows out the eleven candles on the cake in one go. Now it has to come true.

 

 

*********

 

"It's a scholarship, Charlie. It won't cost anything. Look, there's even a grant to cover his uniform."

"No kid of mine is going to a poncy boarding school."

"Yeah, well…"

 

 

*********

 

Billy holds his breath in the dark. He hears the muffled thumps from downstairs, hears the front door slammed open, then slammed shut again. After a little while he hears his mum come slowly upstairs and go to bed. He hears her crying through the thin walls of the little terraced house in Islington. He bites his lip until it bleeds. His wish hadn't come true. His wishes never come true.

 

*********

 

"Will you be all right, mum?"

"Course I will, lovey. I'll write to you every week. And you'll make lots of friends at your new school. Make sure you work hard, now."

"I will, mum. But dad…"

"Your dad's all hot air, lovey. There's nothing to fret about. I'll see you at half term. That's only six weeks. It'll go really quick."

"I'll miss you, mum."

"I know love. But this is a big opportunity for you. They only have a few of these scholarships a year. You make the best of it. Come on, don't want to miss your train."

 

*********

 

Billy stares out of the window. He had expected to see green fields, but they are mostly brown earth, with an occasional stretch of bright yellow. He doesn't know what the yellow is. It looks like flowers of some kind. There are a few green patches, here and there. He recognises cabbages, and there is an occasional bit of grass with cows.

Taunton is a long way from Islington, especially for an eleven year old making his first trip alone. He wonders what his new school will be like. His gran had bought him a book for his birthday, _Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone._ He had read it avidly, loving the descriptions of Hogwarts School. He wonders if his school will be anything like Hogwarts.

 

*********

 

"Give it back!" Billy tries to grab the letter, but Jenks jumps up on his bunk bed, holding it out of reach while he reads it aloud.

"My darling Billy Boy…"

The other boys in the dorm laugh, catcalling

"Ooh!" "My Darling!" "Billy Boy, Billy Boy!"

Billy bites his lip till it bleeds.

"Give it back, please."

 

*********

 

Billy stands rigidly in front of Mr Criven, his head of house. He stares straight ahead of him, doesn't look sideways at Jenks.

"I do not look kindly on fighting in this house. Both of you, hold out your left hands."

Billy holds out his hand and doesn't wince as a cane is brought down across the palm four times. He bites his lip and doesn't cry. He feels a moment's satisfaction as Jenks cries when he gets his four strokes.

"Now, what was that all about? Wiggins?"

"He took my letter. From my mum, sir. He won't give it back. I haven't even read it yet…"

Criven looks at Jenks with distaste. Holds out his hand.

"Jenks?"

Jenks pulls the letter from his pocket and hands it over. It is ripped and crumpled. Criven smooths it and glances at it.

"I will not stand for bullying, Jenks. You will be suspended until after half term. I will telephone your parents this afternoon. Go and pack whatever you need to take home with you."

Jenks throws Billy a murderous look as he turns and leaves. Criven rummages in his desk drawer for a roll of sellotape, and repairs the worst of the damage. He doesn't give the letter to Billy. Instead, he puts his hand gently on his shoulder and turns him towards the door.

"Let's go along to see matron. See if we can get a cup of tea."

 

*********

 

Billy sits quietly while matron dabs at a cut over his eye.

"You'll have a shiner for a while, and your lip will be a bit sore. You've put your teeth right through it."

She gives him a cup of milky tea and a ginger biscuit.

"You sit here while I have a word with Mr Criven."

Billy sips his tea carefully, trying to keep the sore part of his lip away from the hot cup. He can hear the low rumble of voices from the next room.

"It's not like young Wiggins to get into a fight. He generally keeps himself to himself."

"Jenks is a bully. Wiggins was provoked. Keep an eye on him, will you Mrs Elliot? He has just had some upsetting news from home."

Criven comes back into sick bay. He looks kindly at Billy.

"You'll stay here in sick bay tonight, Wiggins. I'll send a prefect up to your dorm for your pyjamas. Do you have a book you are reading?"

"Yes sir. _Northern Lights,_ sir. Sir, I'm not sick. Why do I have to stay here?"

"Read your letter, Wiggins."

Criven hands Billy the patched up letter, pats him on the head and leaves.

 

*********

 

_My darling Billy Boy_

_I'm so sorry to have to tell you this. Your gran passed away yesterday, lovey. She had the flu, and she wasn't strong enough to get better. I know how much you loved your gran. Try not to be too upset._

_I'm not going to be able to look after you over the half term break, lovey. I've written to the headmaster to ask if you can stay at school. I'll see you at Christmas._

_Keep your chin up_

_All my love, Mum_


	2. Thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy turns out to be clever

"You'll be all right, Bill. They're good people."

The social worker smiles kindly, but Billy knows it's a fake smile. He bites his lip until it bleeds. It takes longer now, and he has to bite a bit harder to open up the scar.

"I still don't understand. Why can't I go home for the holidays? I'll be thirteen in August. I'm not a little kid…"

"Your mum isn't well, Bill. Seeing you will upset her."

Billy won't cry. He knew it would be his fault he wasn't allowed home. Everything is _always_ his fault. The social worker goes on.

"Mr and Mrs Jessop have worked with us as foster parents for a long time. They are looking forward to meeting you. You will be a good boy for them, won't you?"

"Yes miss."

 

*********

 

Mr Jessop likes to tinker in his garage, mending old things; bicycles, toasters, and the love of his life, an old Allis-Chalmers tractor. He lets Billy help him, and the lonely boy thinks he has made a friend.

Mr Jessop gives him a skateboard for his birthday; one he has lovingly repaired and varnished. Billy takes it out for a run and crashes it into a ditch. The chassis isn't damaged at all by the crash, but the deck is scratched and the new paintwork is spoiled.

Billy is philosophical. If you use things, they show wear. Skateboards crash.

Mr Jessop is not philosophical. It is the first time an adult has raised his hand to Billy (he doesn't count the cane across his hand at school). He realises Mr Jessop is not his friend after all. He tells himself it doesn't matter.

Billy starts biting at his lip again. He stops going out to the garage. At the Jessops' house, he buries himself in books. He goes out as much as he can. He roams the lanes around the house, spends hours in the public library, discovers and reads the _New Scientist._

 

*********

 

At thirteen, Taunton third year pupils move up from intermediate school to senior school. Billy has a new housemaster and a new dorm. Unfortunately, he still has Jenks as a dorm mate. Billy settles in and waits for the bullying to start.

He takes placement tests and is accused of cheating when he scores full marks for everything. He bites his lip and waits for the inevitable cane across his hand.

Luckily for him, one of Billy's new masters is a good friend of his old housemaster, Mr Criven, who tells him how bright young Wiggins is. The new master re-tests Billy, using the second-year tests, and when he scores one hundred percent again, he sits him in the corner of his study with the previous summer's GCSE mathematics paper.

The next day he sits him down with science papers.

At the end of Billy's second week in senior school, he is given a new timetable. He will take all his academic classes with the fifth form. He still takes sport, art and music with his dorm mates, though, and still has to bear the bullying from Jenks and his new set of friends.

Billy is useless at sport. He is unco-ordinated and small and skinny for his age. He is accident prone, too, or at least, that is what the masters think. The senior school matron isn't quite so convinced.

The third time Billy is concussed from tripping and falling on the main staircase she takes her concern to the headmaster. Billy doesn't tell tales, but his housemaster starts keeping a more careful eye on him.

At the end of his first senior year, Billy takes GCSEs in all his academic subjects, gaining A grades in everything except mathematics, physics and chemistry, where he gets A-starred grades.

He goes home to London for the summer holidays. His mum looks tired, but she is pleased to see him, and tells him she is proud of him. His dad snarls at him when he gets in his way, so he learns to avoid him.

He thinks he would rather be at school than at home, and feels guilty.


	3. Fourteen/Sixteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sixth form and beyond

When Billy goes back to school in the September after his fourteenth birthday, it is to a new world. His housemaster has officially enrolled him in the lower sixth, two years early, and he no longer has to sleep in a dorm.

Sixth-formers sleep two or three to a room. The housemaster decides that Billy needs to have someone responsible looking out for him, so he puts him in a two-bed room with the head boy, who promptly ignores him. Billy is happy to be ignored. He buries himself in his books, applies himself to his lessons and enjoys school for the first time in his life.

He doesn't get picked for sports teams. He is far too young, and still very small at the start of the year. He finds he enjoys cross-country running, and in the upper sixth, as he begins to grow and his legs lengthen, he can make a good enough time to be commended on prize day.

He elects to take music theory lessons and learns to play piano (badly) and accoustic guitar (quite well). He studies art as his second elective, and turns out to have talent, and a good eye. In his major subjects, he excels.

At fifteen, going on sixteen, he takes A level examinations in mathematics, applied mathematics, physics, chemistry and human biology.

Back in Camden, two weeks after his sixteenth birthday, he gets a letter telling him he has gained A-starred grades in all five subjects. Three days later, he gets a letter from Emmanuel College, Cambridge, confirming a university place for him in the coming academic year.

That night, he has his first wet dream. He cries with relief when he realises what it is. He had quietly watched his twelve and thirteen year old dorm-mates beginning to go through puberty, and had thought it would never happen to him. He has studied enough human biology to know that sixteen is late for puberty to start.

When Billy goes up to Cambridge in October, he is sixteen and almost six foot tall. He is still growing out of his clothes, still skinny, still bites his lip when he is anxious and to add to his misery, has started to develop skin pigmentation on his back that will make him too shy to ever let anyone see him without a shirt.

He is two years younger than any of his fellow freshmen, and finds himself excluded from social activities. He tells himself it doesn't matter. He has his first crush on a fellow-student, a handsome youth who shares a science lab with him. It is unrequited. He tells himself that doesn't matter either.

The scholarship that pays for his fees and accommodation also provides a termly maintenance grant. In his first term, Billy spends nearly all of it on a red Fender Stratocaster. When he isn't studying, he spends his time in his room, listening to CDs and teaching himself to play rock guitar.

A few weeks into his first semester, he writes to his mother. The letter comes back,  unopened.  _Not known at this address_.

In reading week, he gets a train to London. There is a new family living in his old house, they do not know where his parents have moved to. He asks around, but the neighbours don't know where the Wigginses have gone.

Billy goes back to Cambridge. He throws himself into his studies. He can't think of anything else to do. He is sixteen and alone. He tells himself it doesn't matter.


End file.
